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Cost of Fosse Toutes Eau


Menace
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We have a barn for conversion into three bedrooms, one bathroom and one shower room. with the property being used mainly for holidays. I was of the opinion that 3000 - 3500 litre would be adequate. If not possible 5000 litres capacity.

Can anyone advise on the approximate cost of installing a fosse toutes eau, or is the standard fosse septic still acceptable. quotation requested for "eparco" system some time ago and still waiting..

Regards...

Menace (dept 14)

  

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[quote]We have a barn for conversion into three bedrooms, one bathroom and one shower room. with the property being used mainly for holidays. I was of the opinion that 3000 - 3500 litre would be adequate. If...[/quote]

We had a quote in September 2003 for a Fosse Toutes Eau (3000 ltr.) for Euro 2983.00. Half of it the Commune will pay (there was a "special offer" on) which I feel a bit reluctant to take as we are only a holiday home.

Monika (61)

 

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Older type fosse is no longer acceptable. 3000l is usually considered adequate for up to 3 bedrooms (it goes by the number of bedrooms). However, tanks that aren't used all the time actually have a harder life than those that are used regularly because the bacteria need a constant supply of food or  they start dying off. In view of this the authorities may want to see a bigger tank that will have an increased buffering capacity.

I'm currently putting my own in DIY. 3000l plastic with 220l grease trap and all the pipework and hatches comes to just under 1000 euros. This includes the ventilation pipework which most installers conveniently forget about.

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Motorhead -

Was it easy to get go ahead to do yourself from the authority?

We're still waiting for a quote from a company too, but i think we've decided we're going to do it ourselves.  We will however, have to go for a double/complex filter bed I think as we're about 25-30 metres away from a stream.  Are there any good books or reference guides on what we'll need to do to conform to the new rules or will the person that comes out to test our soil and sign off the work advise us?  (sorry to be naive but we haven't moved in yet, so not sure where to start!).

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It's easy enough if you can show them you know what you are doing. What the Bureau Departmental de la Qualite del'Eau can't be bothered with is having to come out all the time to inspect the work in progress.

I'll dig out some bumf and get back in a day or two. Meanwhile check out your local bureau the may have a natty leaflet like mine did.

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We'll find our nearest Bureau and check it out. 

When you say they couldn't be bothered to come out to inspect the work, do you mean they didn't inspect the work in progress or did you have to wait ages for them to come out each time?

Presumably this applies to whether you do it yourself or get someone to do it for you....

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What  I mean is they'd rather deal with folk who's ability and conscience they feel they can rely on. If they feel they need to come out at every stage they will but that could take a long time as they only have to respond within 2 months each time.

The trick is to make a really good impression at the initial visit, which I think I've just about managed. Still only at the verbal go-ahead stage here.

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Many thanks for all your assistance. By coincidence, just arrived home and quotation received along with other post from France, may have got held up somewhere.

For information the quotation is a staggering 11,500euros for a 5000 litre. Having a laugh I thought!. This also incudes 1400 euros for a pump. Why I need a pump I have no idea, taking into account that the land (approx. 3500 square meters of it )slopes gently away from the rear of the property where the fosse is to be sited.

Looks like another trip over to obtain yet more quotations. If all fails, I may have to go the DIY route. The savings would most certainly be worth taking a couple of weeks unpaid leave from work.  Better still anyone in the vicinity east of Vire that can recommend a "cheap" installer?.

 menace (Sussex) & (14) 

 

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Rescource material:

1) Leaflet published by water quality bureau. You may be able to get one from the Mairie but don't count on it being up to date so better going straight to bureau.

2) Application form from bureau. This will tell you how to do the water percolation test if they allow you to do it yourself.

3) La Plomberie in the Comme Un Pro series published by Eyrolles. This is a book on general plumbing but has a good section on fosses which is near the start but there is also a bit tucked away at the end which should not be missed. Particularly good at showing the vent system.

4) http://www.bluepools.co.uk/Fosse%20toutes%20eaux/illustrations.html  Some very good diagrams. Very good at showing all the distances apart things have to be from each other.

5) http://www.whirlnet.co.uk/demon/septic.txt Good guide to the English/Welsh system. Not entirely up to date and not the French regulatons but a lot closer to them than the Scottish regs. Good as a backup in English if you've missed anything in the French.

6) Brico Depot catalogue. Lets you see what all the components look like on their own and gives an idea of prices.

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Hi Motorhead

Sorry to change the direction of the subject slightly, but you seem to know what you're talking about.

 I've looked at the website you recommend and I'm now worried. The first of the two covers for our Fosse is approximately just 2 metres from the bathroom wall, which is well short of the distance recommended on that website.

We are not happy with the fosse for numerous reasons, is it legal to have it this close or should we call the builders back?

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The clearance distances illustration actually shows the distance from house to tank as less than 10m (the arrow points the other way). It can actually be further but you'll need a grease trap for that.

It is quite permissable to have a tank that close and perhaps even beneficial as the pipe will be less prone to blocking than a longer one.

Get hold of the book I mentioned and look at the drawing on page 39 which shows the venting system. This is where most installers fall down.

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Sorry to are a slightly different question but I thought that the new regs required a grease trap whatever. Elsewhere (on another forum) people tended to say that Grease traps are mandatory under these new regs. Is this only if the fosse is more that 10m from the house ?

My own fosse (which is short on vents anyway) does not have a grease trap (to the best of my knowledge), but is about 2 m from the back wall of the house but the waste pipe (loo, shower, etc.) is about 16m from the base (bottom of vertical). The waste goes into a concrete “junction box” where the sink waste joins from a different direction and then on into the fosse – I assume that this is not a grease trap as the system is quite old.

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Grease traps are not needed if the tank is close to the house. I would actually go for 6 rather than 10m. Contrary to what you might hear the tanks can actually handle grease quite well. They (well modern ones anyway) have baffles inside to prevent grease getting into the epandage where it will cause havok.

Dedicated grease traps are to prevent molten grease (mainly from kitchen sink) solidifying in the pipe before it reaches the tank. Obviously the longer the pipe the more time it has to cool down and do this.

Dont sound like you've got a trap anyway. It should have the inlets higher than the outlet with a baffle in between to work as one.

This is actually my first fosse project but I've worked on them back home before. Those were islander style tanks, built up on the beach with the outlet going straight out to sea, very different but I think I've got my head around 98% of it. The downhill ones that is, still not at all sure about the the pumping for the ones that have to go uphill.

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On the estimate, is the pump for the rainwater to be pumped back up to the house, out into the 'street' and into a drain?

It is illegal now for rainwater to just drain away into a neighbouring field.

We scraped in by the skin of our teeth the other month when our installation was certified.  Fortunately, our plans didn't specify a pump as they had been done a couple of years ago and we hadn't got round to it...

Our neighbour got caught though.

OH stopped to talk to the contractor the other day and he says even more new regulations have come in and it is a nightmare now.  Apparently, the Préfecture is involved now.

Saying that, we paid about half of your estimate.  This included a bit of additional work too.

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[quote]Many thanks for all your assistance. By coincidence, just arrived home and quotation received along with other post from France, may have got held up somewhere. For information the quotation is a sta...[/quote]

Ours is a 5000l Eparco, sings, dances and has a system of filters thru sand eventually delivering water you can put on the garden. As we have a stream at the bottom of our very sloping land, we wanted emerging liquids to be as pure as possible. This work was done by Entreprise Loisel at Brecey (Villedieu direction) and cost E6000-ish. Not cheap but reasonable spec kit. A benefit of Loisel is they do a lot of public works for various communes so your Mairie should be agreeable. You could also track down a contractor by the name of Chapdelaine south of Vire towards Sourdeval area. We've used him for ground works and he was very good and very reasonably priced.
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Our garden slopes away from the house too, but we have had to have a raised filter bed because of the location of water course, wells and soil make up.  The pump is located just before the filter bed and is purely to pump the water to the top of the bed to allow it to drain down.  1400 euros for a pump is expensive we paid 475 euros.  All the information you need to install your fosse and filter bed should be contained in your survey report for which you have to pay.  We sent this report to our water authority who agreed it and then they just made one inspection, after the installation but before we back filled, and signed it off.  We have just had a materials cost for a customer and that was 2500 euros 3000 ltr, without a pump and the pipe from the fosse to the filter bed, on top of this you need to add the cost of a digger.

 

Hope this is helpful.

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Continuing the off topic discussions on grease traps I was wondering why we don't have them in the UK? With mains drainage we often have long pipe runs to the main drains but don't seem to have any problems with congealed grease in the pipes. Is this because the French seem to use 100mm pipe rather than the 110 used used in the UK and so are more prone to blocking? It seemed to me that rodding out the pipe occasionally was as easy as emptying a grease trap in any case. Am I missing something fundamental?

Best Regards

Alan.

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I thank you all for your informative response on this topic. I am now much more aware of the possible cost of installation. I will no doubt be seeking further quotation this Friday. I may consider the DIY route as a last resort.

menace 

 

 

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